News Corp's NDS which claims to be leading provider of technology solutions for digital pay-TV has announced an agreement with VideoTele.com, a division of Tut Systems.

The alliance will offer telecommunications companies an end-to-end solution for delivering high-quality, high-value digital content. The agreement means that VideoTele.com can now provide Independent Operating Companies (IOCs) a content protection solution for the delivery of entertainment services. VideoGuard is part of the NDS Synamedia solution, which protects broadcast TV and Video-on-Demand (VOD) over broadband.

This solution enables service providers to offer consumers the best total interactive entertainment package while controlling, managing, personalising, and securing digital entertainment content. The open NDS platform allows for easy interoperability with the VideoTele.com technology.

An official release informs that as distribution of digital entertainment expands into large IOCs, content providers will increase their scrutiny of this market. Telcos need to ensure that their delivery platform can support this form of digital rights management. By working with NDS, telcos will have access to the industry’s leading content protection solution,ensuring that any video – video-on-demand, pay-per-view, or premium TV channels – will be protected when transmitted over broadband networks.

VideoTele.com claims to be the leading supplier of high-quality, low bit rate, digital video encoding platforms for the telecommunications market. The VideoTele.com Astria content processor delivers digital TV over broadband access networks and is used by more than 50 service providers in fully deployed commercial sites around the world. VideoGuard protects over $11 billion of TV revenues and is used in over 32 million households globally.

NDS has stated that its agreement with VideoTele.com brings to the telecommunications industry the competitive advantage of adding content protection to high-value entertainment services. By implementing content protection for high value, compelling content within a triple play offering of telephony, Internet and entertainment NDS claims to be helping to drive the demand for broadband services and, as a result – for profits.